We’re making a final, valiant push to finish our Dodge Dart Rallye’s 40,000-mile stay roughly on schedule. In our first long-term test update, we noted the Dart was struggling to gain friends—and miles, having accumulated just over 18,000 odometer ticks after eight months in our fleet. Now, 13 months into its test, the Dart has rolled over 34,060 miles, and we will complete our assessment of Dodge’s fresh-faced compact within the next month or so. (For reference, we can usually roll 40K on a given long-termer in a year.)

Early on, the Dart’s laggy and flaccid powertrain distinguished itself as one of our least-favorite things about the sedan. It’s good, then, that the Dart’s mileage accumulation has come largely from a travel format that mostly minimizes the 1.4-liter turbo four’s role and plays up the car’s comfortable ride and spacious accommodations: long road trips. Free of the stop-and-go hustle and bustle of city slickin’, the Dart has established itself as an amenable highway cruiser—especially during this year’s precipitation-heavy winter, where its benign front-drive dynamics have combined with winter rubber to instill confidence in bad weather

Number of Trouble-Free Days: Reset

Immediately following our first update, the Dart’s problem-free run came to an end, as its airbag and check-engine dashboard lights started blazing with 20,385 miles on the odometer. The diagnostics came back with 33 codes thrown, all of which the dealer reset, initially curing the problem. However, after tracing the issue to the wiring harness under the passenger seat, service techs found that wiggling the loom caused the dash lights to glow like the end of a Cuban. A short was diagnosed, and the dealer replaced the wiring harness under warranty.

Just 271 miles later, the check engine light came back on, prompting yet another unscheduled dealer visit. Turns out the Dart’s active grille shutters weren’t working—they were, thankfully, stuck open—and the entire assembly was replaced free of charge. The Dart hasn’t been back to the dealer for anything but scheduled maintenance since, and we’re glad those issues occurred while we were under the protection of the Dart’s three-year bumper-to-bumper warranty.

All Plugged Up

Since our last report, the Dart underwent its 30,000-mile service. Compared with the relatively reasonable $59 and $80 service visits previously done, the 30K bill was, uh, shocking. It set us back a substantial $408 for an oil change, air-filter swap, and fresh set of spark plugs. We think it’s bizarre for any modern car to require new plugs so early, and it’s even stranger for those plugs, some oil, and an air filter to cost $261. (The labor portion of this service ran $119, with the rest allotted to mysterious “miscellaneous charges.”) We initially figured the dealer had simply hosed us, but we did some digging and found that the extreme cost could be chalked up almost exclusively to the spark plugs themselves.

The Dart—at least 1.4-liter turbo models—uses NGK iridium spark plugs, which retail for $33 each on Mopar’s parts site, but a massive backorder on these plugs meant we were charged 25 percent extra to get the plugs in posthaste. This pushed the per-plug price to a staggering $44. It gets worse—we couldn’t find the plugs from parts suppliers like NAPA or O’Reilly, and even though the plugs are produced by NGK for Mopar, they don’t appear on NGK’s databases. It seems that for now Chrysler is the sole source for these plugs, and they’re not cheap. Back-yard mechanics, take note.

Another item of note: About the time of the 30K service, we noticed strange, linear rub marks on the top surface of the rear bumper and sourced their origin to the trunklid. Turns out the trunklid would contact the bumper and chafe the paint whenever the lid was closed with anything more than a dainty click. Our dealer inspected the problem and concluded all was well, adding: “The trunklid only rubs on the bumper on an overslam condition. Under normal operation the trunk will close without rubbing.” Chrysler techs must be gentle folk, because we continue to lose paint from the bumper and lower edge of the trunklid one trunk close at a time—this despite the spacious gap between the trunk and bumper when the lid is closed.

Still Orange, Still Ho-Hum

Overall fuel economy has notched down by 1 mpg to 29. That kind of efficiency is pretty darn good, but it also reflects the sheer amount of highway miles we’ve spent in the Dart as opposed to gallivanting around town. A few drivers have noted an odd sensation when accelerating at highway speeds, with one driver describing the issue as a “hiccup” and another hypothesizing a misfire when accelerating at 70 mph in top gear. We have yet to have the issue examined, as the little orange Dodge headed out for a quick jaunt to Florida. We’ll have an update—and a final verdict—on the Dart soon.

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